Metal plays a huge role in various industries. Whether you consider it for tool making, manufacturing infrastructure, or creating other utility items such as utensils, chairs, tables, desks, sheet metal fabrication needs to be done.
So what is this word Fabrication added before metal mean?
Fabricating a metal simply means adding to its value. It includes treatment of method using different methods to make it ready for product making. The metal sheet is shaped into various shapes and sizes depending on the needs of any industry.
The metal sheet rolls are used as a raw material in this process, and then each type of process has its equipment and desirous outcomes. Each of these processes is quite complex and varied enough in itself.
Here we will discuss the different processes used in the sheet metal fabrication industry and the process or the complexity involved. so let’s begin-
Forging: In this sheet metal fabrication process, forced pressure is used to create a desired shape of the metal. This is a manual process in which the metal is heated to the point that it becomes malleable, and you can easily bend it into desired shape and form. Usually, hammer or die strikes is used for this. This is one of the oldest technique, which finds application in creating a more intricate structure.
Drawing: It uses tensile force to carve metal into a tapered die. It used to make metal into a thinner shape. This method of steel metal fabrication is used to create a final product which is like a box or cylindrical vessel.
Forming: It is the process of bending the metal to the desired angle. Brake press is used to impose the desired pressure to create a crease.
Machining: In this method, the fabricator removes the unwanted material from the metal.
There are different types of machining:
- Drilling: As evident from the name, this method includes drilling holes into the metal
- Turning: It uses a lathe to move the metal at high speed, which allows the removal of metal in a circular manner. Nowadays, the fabricator makes use of a CNC machine for this.
- Milling: In this method, a multi-point cutting tool is used to remove metal from the workpiece.
Welding:
You cannot think of sheet metal fabrication without welding. Welding simply means to join two metal parts using heat such that they meltdown from the welding edge and fuse, and the resultant is then cooled off, and you get a joined metal piece.
Welding applications are common in so many industries. Due to their ease of use, you cannot practically negate them.
They can even be used for any types of metal objects, such as metal sheets, metal rods, metal bars, and so on. Welding may look like being all the same, but different welding types are used in many industrial processes.
Shearing
This method of sheet metal fabrication is used in the metal industries to trim down the edges of a metal sheet and make them smoother. But the process is easily applied anywhere on the metal sheet as it is a lot easier.
There are very large sheets of metals that have to be cut right through the length in some cases. In such cases, you have got the feeder machines in which the metal sheet is placed horizontally and allowed to pass through auto cutting machine inside.
Concluding thoughts
Metal sheet fabrication finds a multitude of applications across different industries. Some of the examples are cold rolled steel, hot rolled steel, aluminium and stainless steel. The metal steel fabrication industry has evolved with time. Today, we have technologically advanced tools like CNC machine that makes the fabrication task easy and efficient.
